[ClumsyPilot]

Would ot be more difficult? We are yet to feel the fill impact of climate change. Its certainly possoble.

By 200 BC, simple wind-powered water pumps were used in China, and windmills with woven-reed blades were grinding grain in Persia and the Middle East.

The first practical electric car was built in 1890

[oneoff786]

Climate change is an existential threat. That doesn’t mean reed blade windmills are a viable substitute for fossil fuels.

It is utter nonsense to think you could have fueled human growth with such technology to a remotely similar scale.

Without fossil fuels you have no cheap transport fuel, no green revolution, no industrial revolution, many many metals, plastic, and probably many more things.

[ClumsyPilot]

I am just pointing out that your measurement as growth might be amazing today, but if, for arguments sake, it is followed by catastrophic collapse, then maybe the schenario without fossil fuels which gives you 'slow and steady' growth could come out ahead at the end of the day.

[oneoff786]

We might face catastrophic collapse, but that doesn’t mean a slow and steady approach would work. Lack of coal just means you burn up less efficient resources to try and replace it. It wouldn’t be enough. Mostly that means trees. There is no slow and steady. It’s still a race to consume. You’ve just taken out the most plentiful and valuable energy resources humanity has been blessed with.

This view does not require any fondness for fossil fuels now, though realistically we are still highly dependent on them.

[ClumsyPilot]

"There is no slow and steady. It’s still a race to consume"

Britain ran out of Trees to consume like a thousand years ago, they have records of forest cover since year 1000 and it's between 15-5% ever since.

The cocept of forest management and 'you don't chop down the last tree' is over a thousand years old.

What is the race to consume after trees?

You have no choice but to harness wind, which can actually cover humanity's energy demand, and to use electricity to create fuels and to refine metals. These technologies are over 100 years old. We would be poorer,it woupd be more difficult, but thos alternative scenario doesn't lead to sudden collapse - atmosphere is a unique resource thats impossible to own.

[spywaregorilla]

(same poster as above, alt account, sorry)

You're just handwaving history without any real knowledge of how resources developed.

The ability to not chop down trees is predicated on having substitute goods available. One of the biggest and most important innovations the world has ever seen was the invention of iron produced from coke (coal). Before coke, you needed charcoal (trees) to produce iron. It was expensive, and the supply of wood was running out. You mention England. Well England lost 66% of its wood supply between 1000AD and 1900AD at a fairly consistent rate, before widespread use of fossil fuels. This INCLUDED needing to IMPORT large quantities of wood from other areas. Its great that they've managed to reforest their local area, but the net consumption of wood on a global scale is undoubtedly still net consuming. And if we never used coal to make iron, then the economic cost of literally everything just got much higher, and more expensive, and more wood intensive. Learning to make iron from coal allowed us to stop using wood as a substitute. To be clear, the industrial revolution is just not economically viable to happen without coal. Society just does not advance. It's not a matter of putting up windmills.

Without fossil fuels you don't get iron, steel, plastic, etc. You know what wind turbines are made of? Steel. Iron. Plastic. Mostly steel. You can't make steel without fossil fuels. Aside from the massive energy requirements, you're going to need coal in there to get carbon into the steel. Unless, yet again, you want to burn trees into charcoal.

Even with today's tech and substitutes, deforestation continues at an alarming rate. Dropping us back to pre industrial revolution tech isn't a good idea to solve that.